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Osamor was born to Nigerian parents in 1968 and grew up in Haringey, north London.[7] One of four children, and whose father died when she was a child, she recalls her mother Martha Osamor, Baroness Osamor (née Oburotha),[8] working "three, sometimes four jobs" to make ends meet.[9] Martha Osamor was a political activist and a member of the Labour Party Black Sections in the 1980s.[10][11] She became a councillor and deputy Leader of Haringey Council; in 1989 she was nominated by some branches within the Vauxhall Constituency Labour Party in the selection for a candidate at the by-election, but was not shortlisted by the Labour Party National Executive Committee.[12] She was appointed to the House of Lords on the recommendation of Jeremy Corbyn in 2018.[13]

Osamor was re-elected as MP for Edmonton in the 2017 General Election. She was subsequently accused of plagiarising large sections of her victory address from Barack Obama's 2008 victory address in his home town of Chicago. According to Osamor's explanation she "deliberately invoked a victory speech so famous that she thought it needed no introduction”.[26]

Osamor's maiden speech to the House of Commons on 2 June 2015 was also reported to have been plagiarised. Her speech included parts that were almost identical to the maiden speech given by her predecessor Andy Love which was delivered on 4 June 1997, as well as the Enfield Society summer 2011 newsletter and the Wikipedia article for Edmonton.[27]

In October 2018, it emerged that Osamor continued to employ her son, Ishmael Osamor, as a senior communications officer in her Parliamentary office despite his convictions for three counts of possession of class A controlled drugs with intent to supply and one of possession. He had been arrested for this offence over a year previously after being caught with £2,500 worth of the illegal drugs cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine and cannabis, at the Bestival music festival in August 2017. After disclosure of his conviction, he resigned his cabinet seat and, after pressure from the opposition, his seat as a councillor for Haringey Council.[28] On 1 November 2018, Conservative MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan referred Osamor to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards stating her "failure to uphold" the MPs code of conduct, with regards to her son's continued employment.[29] Osamor denied any wrongdoing and called the referral "politically motivated".[29]

The Labour Party claimed that Osamor, who lives and works with her son, knew nothing about his case until his sentencing on 26 October, but it later emerged that she had known about it earlier and had written to the trial judge asking for leniency before his sentencing on 19 October. In response, Conservative MP Priti Patel stated: "Serious questions must be asked about whether she has misled the public in her account so far of what she knew and when she knew it."[30] Patel also called for an investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, both regarding allegedly misleading the public and the continued employment of Osamor's son.

Upon being questioned on her doorstep by The Times reporter Will Humphries about whether she had misled the public over the extent of her knowledge of her son's court case, Osamor threw a bucket of water at Humphries and shouted "Fuck off!" and "I should have come down here with a bat and smashed your face in."[31] She then called the police emergency service to report him for stalking her, calling the police emergency service again the following night in relation to the presence of another reporter.[32][33][34][35] Michelle Stanistreet, General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said: “Journalists, like any other workers, need to be able to go about their work without fear of threats or assault. It’s completely unacceptable to respond to legitimate press queries, however unwelcome they may be, with physical or verbal abuse."[36]

On 1 December 2018, Osamor resigned from Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet, stating she needed "to concentrate on supporting my family through the difficult time we have been experiencing".[37] Ten days later, she tweeted that she was "deeply sorry for (her) emotional outbursts and ... working to better manage (her) feelings".[38]

In January 2019, she faced further criticism when it was revealed that she used official parliamentary stationery and referenced her shadow cabinet position in writing to the judge to appeal for clemency in the sentencing of her son.[39]